Hey, kids, it’s me Curtis Curly-tail! I know I haven’t blogged in a long time, but hopefully, you’ve been keeping up with my activities on my YouTube channel that I share with Elaine. Watching my videos is a great way to spend the hot middays when it’s too hot to be playing outside. But I have another suggestion for a fun thing to do this summer!
Have Some Fun with Me
You know how during the school year, adults have been educating you, telling you about all the things they think you should know? How would you like to be the teacher? That’s right, you can read a fun, magnificently illustrated book filled with scientific facts and then tell everyone all about them.
Everyone loves pictures in books. Don’t let adults tell you otherwise. Adults love bright, colorful, and interesting illustrations just as much as any kid does. Many of them just won’t admit it. Illustrations with lots of details make riding books over and over much more enjoyable. Modesty aside, the illustrations in my book have lots of fascinating details.
One complaint adults have about the summer break is that kids often forget information they learned during the school year. Here’s your chance to entertain yourself and learn a bit of useful information. Your family will be so proud when you can tell them about turtles and tortoises, roadrunners and rattlesnakes (respect but don’t fear them). While helping with yard work, you can identify the kind of ground squirrels digging those holes and console your parents that those seemingly destructive squirrels are actually very beneficial to the environment.
A Blooming Good Time
This is also the time of the year for the blooming spectacle of the Night-blooming Cereus. These plants, which look like dead sticks most of the year, put forth branches and flowers. Incredibly, the flowers all bloom together for one night on the same night! Tohono Chul has a festival around this event. You should bring your family out for it. Be vigilant, it only happens on one night and no one knows just when it is going to happen until a few days before! Just maybe, this is the one night your parents will let you stay up past your bedtime. After all, this is educational. Hey, educational is not a bad word. Learning cool stuff is fun!
Even though I know you’ll like examining the illustrations, you might also enjoy reading the words. The text (words) in Elaine’s books are written in rhyme, which means they are actually poetry. Poetry is wonderful. You might have a favorite book of poetry for children. Mine is Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, but there are lots more. When you sing your favorite song, you might find that its words rhyme. Poetry is everywhere.
I like to read the words in Elaine’s books out loud. That way, you bring another of your senses into the experience. You can see the words and then hear the words. You might try “performing” the words. Then you be doing Spoken Word Poetry. It’s very popular right now. Saying words out loud gives them more power! Just like an actor on a stage or screen or radio. There is so much you can do with a book.
When the temperature is cooler, go outside and observe the world around you. Identify the plants and animals. Watch how they interact with each other and you. Draw your own pictures and write your own books. I want to read one of your books someday!
